How can I reuse or recycle … foam pizza/garlic bread bases?

There’s something about the combination of garlic, parmesan and salt on flat garlic breads that I absolutely love. I think it might be the cheese and the salt – and perhaps the garlic.

Because we don’t always have time to make our own, we have either a flat garlic bread or a frozen pizza about once a month – but they’re packaging nightmares: the bread/pizza sits on top of a round foam base, covered in shrink-wrapped plastic and in a cardboard box.

The cardboard can be recycled but the plastic and foam not so much. Any ideas for reusing the foam bases?

(If you’re not familiar with them, they’re flat, round discs about 25cm (10″) in diameter – but bigger ones are used for bigger, fresh pizzas. The foam is about 4mm thick (1/8th of an inch) and not bendy – it snaps rather than bends. Ours also usually have a slight (ahem) garlicky odour which might impact the uses.)

You can make printing plates from them. Press your design into them with a biro or pencil then ink/paint them up and print away! I’ve also used joss sticks to burn patterns into them and then use to print. If you’re into arty things you could also cut them up and use as ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).

Find your local Art Centre or some charity art group. I am an artist and I think these would make a rather unusual and funky canvas for oil/acrylic paintings! Also – if you collect these in different shapes and colours – you can stick the smaller ones on the top of the big ones and make a funky wall decorations – who needs wallpaper!

When my little sister was learning to tell the time, I made a pretend clock for her out of a pizza base. Perhaps your local school could get their children to make clocks, or they could use them in arts and craft.

I’ve done a load of designs for funky aircraft that use exactly that base. I had a few myself and tried to come up with something that flew, it would be a great sunday afternoon project if you’ve got kids (or even if you haven’t :)). Mostly they need weight at the front to glide, I would use White Tack or similar. The flatter they are the better, but you can try them and see.